Reviews for RDBMS Backed Web Sites: Philip Greenspun's Guide to Web Publishing

1. Fantastic book, if not poorly named.

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, January 12th, 1998

   I can't think of anyone in the web industry -- engineers, content producers, advertising sales, etc. -- that wouldn't benefit from the remarkably common-sensical (yet somehow lucidly revealing) presentation that Greenspun's spun.

   The only problem is that the title makes it look like a techie book -- one for database techies. There is plenty of that covered, but for me (a non-database techie) there's so many gems sprikled throughout that I recommend it to anyone, techie or not.

   I spent 2.5 years writing a book of my own, yet I feel this is one of the best books I've ever read. The only problem I could point out, besides the ill-conceived title, is that some of Greenspun's nomenclature gets overused and somewhat weary. A small price to pay for the fantastic light he sheds on common-sense web publishing.

2. Brilliant, hilarious, and informative

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, June 12th, 1997

   I haven't read as entertaining and informative a computer book since Guy Kawasaki's _The Macintosh Way_. Greenspun's book has the added advantage of containing useful information -- both the type you can make use of right now and the type that helps you position yourself for coming trends.

   I hope the book isn't marketed as a get-rich-quick how-to guide, because it isn't. While it does teach the reader to understand and design database-backed web sites and to make use of Greenspun's publicly-available tools, it does not go into the nitty-gritty of how to construct general web interfaces to databases. Still, I rate the book a 10 because I can't imagine any readers, no matter what they were expecting, being disappointed by this book.